Apple rolls out software patch for iPhone bug in record time

Only six days after a serious flaw was discovered in its latest operating system, the company has released an updated version - iOS7.0.2 - that will stop people from being able to bypass a device's lock screen and access its contents.

Only six days after a serious flaw was discovered in its latest operating system, the company has released an updated version - iOS7.0.2 - that will stop people from being able to bypass a device's lock screen and access its contents.

The security flaw, discovered within hours of iOS7, the operating system for Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, going live on September 18, enabled potentially anyone to open an iPhone's control center panel and through it gain access to a phone's text messages, emails, photo albums, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts, even when the device was locked and the passcode activated.

However, less than a week after the flaw made global headlines, Apple has rolled out an update (the company's average time for fixing these things is two weeks) which varies in size from 17MB to 20MB depending on whether the device is an iPhone 4, 4S or 5.

According to the latest reports, 60 % of Apple device owners have already upgraded to the new version of the operating system and as a result, when the update went live on Thursday night, download times were pretty lengthy (up to three hours) as literally 100s of millions of users logged on to Apple's servers to update their phones.